Recognizing that there are many contradictory passages in scriptures, let’s ignore them all and just look at the morality of substitutionary atonement.

Scriptures tell us that to perfect our wisdom, we must get out of the Christian theology. I think that those passages are asking us to confirm our thinking with analogies that do not include Christian dogma.

With that in mind, I offer an analogy for discussion.

Scriptures say we are all children of God.

Imagine you have two children. One of your children does something wrong – say it curses, or throws a temper tantrum, or something like that. In fact, say it does this on a regular basis, and you continually forgive your child, but it never seems to change.

Now suppose one day you’ve had enough, you need to do something different. You still wish to forgive your child, but nothing has worked. Do you go to your second child, your good child, and punish it to atone for the sins of the first?

In fact, if you ever saw a parent on the street punish one of their children for the actions of their other child, how would you react? Would you support their decision, or would you be offended?

Interestingly, some historical royal families would beat their slaves when their own children did wrong – you should not, after all, ever beat a prince. The question is: what kind of lesson does that teach the child who actually did the harm? Does it teach them to be a better person, to stop doing harm, or does it teach them both that they won't themselves be punished, and also that punishing other people is normal? I know that's not a lesson I would want to teach my children, and I suspect it's not a lesson most Christians would want to teach theirs. So why does God?

Do you agree that having another innocent person suffer for the wrongs you have done, --- so that you might escape responsibility for having done them, --- is immoral. Do you agree that to abdicate personal responsibility or use a scapegoat is immoral?

If not, please show how it is morally and legally good to punish the innocent instead of the guilty, bearing in mind that all legal systems think that punishing the guilty is what is justice.

I don't think it was "self-sacrifice", it was God sacrificing his own son if I remember correctly, even though he went kind of willingly, after this scene:Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” – Luke 22:39-44

You should pick up a wonderful book about the history of the church from around 100AD to 600AD, its called "the Jesus Wars". Your argument is part of the history of the canon. Another one is the divinity of Jesus and the status of Mary as mother to a God. These types of debates lasted for centuries. There really was no resolution, Constantine and the Pope finished them by decree creating the separation of the faith into orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church.

agreed. In essence, the presence of the Trinity created a polytheistic structure that conflicted with the OT Yahweh one God testament. Another issue was whether Jesus existed before becoming a man. Why didn't the God of the OT mention the fact that he shared power with another God and a spirit? Did the baby Jesus become a God after reaching a certain age or was he a God at birth. How could a God be a baby? Did Mary have a God in her womb? As usual, the leaders of the Church then started making up ways that their desired storyline could be defended against attacks of logic like this, it got very nasty for hundreds of years while they hashed this out.

It could be like SuperGirl, Jesus learns about his powers by levitating nails in Joseph's carpentry shop. Seriously though, when did Jesus know he was an omnipotent god? When he was shitting his pants? Did he start speaking in the cradle? Could he walk one day after birth? No you say? He was a human being for a while and then became a God later on? So then he was just another kid and then presto, Jesus, the son of God, came to inhabit his body and mind at say around 13 years old. At that point, he was a God. Well, why didn't Jesus the God tell everyone that if you sail west you would find a vast new land filled with people and riches? Why did he not say to everyone "wash your hands, my father created germs that can kill you if you don't" or "diseases are carried by human waste, invent some toilets and get rid of the waste by sending it to treatment plants and not the nearest stream, gutter or beach?". Why did he not know anything at all that was not already known at the time? The modern world wants to know.

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